MUSKOKA LAKES—Bill Miller instantly recognized the woman being put into the back seat of an OPP cruiser Tuesday afternoon — and he couldn’t help but notice LeeAnne McRobb apparently had a new ride.

“I’m going, ‘What is she doing driving a Cadillac Escalade?’ ” said Miller, who owns Bait, Tackle and More, a fishing shop at Muskoka Road 169 and Butterfly Rd., the intersection where McRobb was pulled over by Bracebridge OPP and charged with impaired driving and driving over the legal limit.

Many residents in the smattering of small communities in the picturesque Muskoka cottage country are now asking the same question, with an addendum: Rob Ford’s Cadillac Escalade.

McRobb, a 36-year-old Muskoka Lakes resident, was reportedly behind the wheel of the mayor’s SUV when she was pulled over. Ford is known to be in the area, believed to be in rehab at the GreeneStone treatment centre.

In two videos shot by Moose FM reporters and posted online Wednesday, McRobb is seen entering a towing company location in Gravenhurst, saying she needed to collect personal items from a vehicle that wasn’t hers. She spoke about being at GreeneStone with Ford.

The rehab facility is less than four kilometres from where police pulled McRobb over. Miller said he gets a “reasonable amount of their patients.”

Bracebridge OPP Const. Jessica Drake confirmed Thursday that McRobb was “in possession of a vehicle legally,” following an investigation to determine if there were “underlying issues.” She would not say whether investigators spoke to the owner of the Escalade.

McRobb is well known in her current home of Bala — where she works at the local TD bank, an employee confirmed — and nearby MacTier, where she has family and friends.

News of her arrest has prompted discussion as well as suggestions McRobb may have been out in the SUV previous to the arrest. Patrick Corrigan, who was visiting the area over the weekend, said he saw the mayor and a woman with “orangey hair” driving in Gravenhurst on Sunday.

Corrigan, a former Star cartoonist, said he saw the car turn into the entrance of the Marriott Hotel in town.

“They sit there five minutes, she jumps into hotel then returns in a bit leans in waves goodbye as Ford, now driving, heads off and back up northbound on 169. He never left vehicle so must have slid across seats to drive,” Corrigan wrote in an email.

Sherri Taylor, McRobb’s next-door neighbour on a calm street set along a lake, told the Star she saw a black Escalade parked in McRobb’s driveway twice within the last few days.

McRobb’s family, who live in the area, were tight-lipped Thursday, and would not say where she has been staying since her arrest. Knocks on McRobb’s door went unanswered Thursday.

Her father, Bill McRobb, declined to comment at his Georgian Bay home, where he rents cottages and runs a marina. Asked if he wanted to say anything in defence of his daughter, he replied: “I know my daughter.”

McRobb’s sister, Lindsay Sarrasin, said Wednesday her sibling has “never been in trouble before.”

Meghan Gresham Riva, who is friends with Sarrasin and knows McRobb through her, said she feels badly that the family must deal with the sudden attention — but she suggested McRobb tends to like the limelight.

“I would say that if she was in rehab and he was there . . . because of his status and popularity, she would have gone towards that. She would have not been shy.”